


How to Disappear Completely

by Las



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, M/M, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/pseuds/Las
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superhero AU. Jared loses his powers and everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Disappear Completely

**Author's Note:**

> Written for glassyskies's birthday. Thank you to jaimeykay and clwright2 for betareading.

"Does your mother know where you go at night?" Jared asks of the shadow in his doorway.

It shifts into the light and takes on shape, suddenly nothing more than a man, a tired one from what Jared can see, the shoulders drooped and the footsteps heavy.

"What I do in my off-hours is my own business," Jensen replies.

"Didn't mean to imply otherwise," Jared says, turning back to the book he was reading. For show now, because he saw his curtains flutter in a sudden breeze a few minutes ago. It's a windless night, and he has learned to read the signs. Jared had already opened the window a little wider for his anticipated guest, and had been waiting in the kitchen with a copy of _Absalom, Absalom_ when said guest showed up. He hadn't had to wait long.

Jared raises an eyebrow at Jensen's outfit, "Is that new?"

He knows it is. He's seen the front-page headlines, the photos of The Lightning apprehending the city's latest slew of goons. The Lightning dresses up in leather now, the coat sleeker and more fitted, the mask streamlined and no longer making Jensen look like something grotesque, but the dangerous predator he has always advertised himself to be. Jared still has those newspapers. He uses them to stuff the cracks in the windowsills because he can't be bothered to actually fix it.

Jensen holds out his arms and levitates a few inches off the ground, turning in a slow circle. "You like? I designed it myself."

Jared snorts. "You did not."

"I designed some of it."

Jared turns a page of his book.

"Fine," Jensen concedes. "I picked out the boots."

"You should give your butler more credit. He's a better seamstress than either of us could ever be." Jared frowns thoughtfully. "Seamster? Is there a gender-appropriate noun?"

"Jeff is a man of many talents," Jensen agrees, and drifts closer.

He dogears the page he's on and closes his book. "Jensen," he says. "Why are you here?"

"I want you to come back," Jensen says, alighting on the ground. His tone and manner are brusque, but defensively so.

"Back to what?" Jared sighs. He leans back in his chair. "To being your sidekick? The Lightning and the Phoenix saving the world together again, news at eleven?"

Jensen frowns, unable to see the irony. "Yes."

"I can't," Jared says, calm, concise. "You made sure of that."

+

The first time Jensen showed up like this, Jared had pointed a gun at him and told him he had no patience for gloating. He had been in a bad state then. They both were.

At the time, Jared hadn't left the apartment in weeks, hadn't even properly unpacked. All the boxes were stacked in the living room, and he was sleeping in a mattress in the kitchen because that was the warmest room in the house. It was a change from Jensen's penthouse, sure, but at this point it was the lesser of two evils.

He had developed a five o'clock shadow. He hadn't showered in two days, and mostly subsisted on a diet of canned tuna and tap water. Their air of bravado fell flat: the gun in Jared's hand shook, and the look on Jensen's face was that of a deer in headlights, a lost child.

"Gloating? No." Jensen leaned against the doorway, still in costume but unmasked. He held the doctored balaclava (which had always made Jared laugh) in his hand. "That would make me an asshole."

Jared said, "You _are_ an asshole."

"So are you."

"Point."

Jensen had come straight here from some job, that much was clear. A bruise colored his cheek. His bottom lip was split open, and Jared found its occasional trickle of blood distracting. And then there was the reckless air about him, like something gutted, and Jared wondered what desperation must have led The Lightning here, of all places. Then again, they hadn't seen each other in months, and perhaps some centers just couldn't hold. There was a certain inevitability to this reunion, even if it did involve a loaded pistol aimed at the heart.

He had never known Jensen to fuck around. If the Lightning came here to kill him, then he would have done so by now. _You've already killed me_ , Jared thought, and thought of the fire that burned through him when he was trapped in the particle decelerator, the heat greater than his own that drained him. He thought of Jensen watching with guilty horror and his hand on the switch as Jared's powers were sucked straight out of him, leaving him utterly human in a way it never occurred to him he could be.

Then Jensen said, "Jay—" in that voice, and something grated. Something rubbed raw, but it was also what made Jared lower the gun. "Jay, look—"

"You haven't called me that in a long time."

"You haven't been that in a long time."

"Fuck off. You don't get to preach to me."

"I'm not preaching." If there was anything Jensen hated more than a wrongful accusation, Jared had yet to find it. It was true – Jensen was not preaching, but he was lonely, and Jared's words had the predicted effect. Suddenly Jensen was close, maybe too close, right in his face, and Jared allowed himself the thought that maybe he had missed this. Maybe they both had.

"What I did," Jensen spat out, and Jared could smell the alcohol, "was for your own good."

"Oh, my own good," Jared sneered.

"You were gonna die. You were out of control!"

"I had everything under control!" Jared tried to shove him away, but Jensen grabbed his wrists and – true to his moniker – spun them around lightning-fast and slammed Jared back against the wall. Jared twisted and dropped, kicking Jensen's feet out from under him, but the bastard could fly so it was only Jared who hits the floor. Jared's first instinct was to reach for the fire within, to lash out with flame, and he was jarred to find that place inside him cold and empty. He still forgot sometimes.

When Jensen was drunk and broken-hearted, he was not kind. The brutality worked itself outward and inflicted itself upon whatever he perceived to be standing in his way. That night, it was Jared. Jensen didn't ease his grip, and try as Jared might, he couldn't get free. The pain shocked him, now that his body was no longer used to it. Jared may be bigger, but years of sparring practice together had given Jensen a thorough knowledge of all his weak points, and he used them now, cutting off all escape. But maybe Jared didn't really want to escape. Maybe he wasn't sure what he wanted, but maybe if he stayed here, locked in place under the weight and warmth of his old friend, perhaps he would be able to figure it out.

Jared used to be able to quell Jensen's violent tendencies, but he had never been the reason for them. These new circumstances had him at a loss. Jensen loomed over him with his breathing ragged and his expression cornered as if he was the one behind held down, and Jared couldn't imagine that he was in any better of a condition.

"Jay—"

"What do you want?" Jared rasped.

+

Jensen steps closer, a challenge, but Jared remains seated at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers on Faulkner and keeping the ball in Jensen's court. He is too used to these entreaties and practiced in deflection. He is loathe to make direct demands, and so he must resort to these proxy wars.

Jensen says, "Just because you lost your powers—"

"Jensen, my power _was_..." Jared tosses the book aside in frustration. "You can't compartmentalize it like that, man. I lost _myself_. When you trapped me in that fucking machine, _you_ lost me."

"What, I should have just let you blow yourself up?" Jensen snaps. "Huh? You noble self-sacrificing son of a bitch?"

"We would have gotten the enemy, man! I could have taken Nightfang down, _me_. I could've done it and it would've been worth it. Didn't you say once that the fight is bigger than us? I could have stopped him, and then _you_ fucking stopped me, and spat in my fucking face. Now look at me!"

"Frankly I think I'm the only one who still does."

"We could've won!" Jared seethes.

"But at what cost?" Jensen demands.

+

Years and years ago: a sleepover and the beginning of a friendship. They were in middle school, young enough to want unencumbered acceptance, brave enough to dare ask it of each other.

"Promise you won't tell," Jensen whispered.

Jared promised, of course. He was just this lonely kid who just moved to the city, unsettled by the crowds and loud noises, and relieved to find someone who didn't anger him. When Jared got angry, people got hurt and he didn't know how to control the fire at the time, not yet. He was excited by the prospect of being the keeper of someone else's secret. Secrets touched him; Jared had carried his own for so long.

Jensen nodded, looking affirmed. "Okay."

"What are you doing?" Jared blurted out when Jensen stepped onto the window ledge, and the next he knew, Jensen lunged out into the open air. Jared scrabbled to the window, expecting to see the broken body of a boy five stories below, but there was no body on the ground. Instead Jared saw a silhouette soaring up to the stars.

It led to a barrage of questions. How far could Jensen fly, how high, what was the farthest he had ever flown?

Jensen asked, "Do you want to see?"

Hours later, on the top of the Empire State building, Jared said to Jensen, "I have a secret, too."

Jensen turned to look at him, still smiling from the high of revelation. "Yeah?"

He told Jensen to stand back. Jared held out his hands, then he reached into the deepest parts of himself, that primal nucleus where he was no longer Jared Padalecki and no longer constrained, where he was power itself, pure and rich. "Maybe you want to shield your eyes," Jared said, and then the world lit up with flame.

+

"What cost?" Jared repeats, narrowing his eyes. "What happened to doing good no matter _what_ the cost?"

Jensen clenches his jaw. "I found my limit."

"Right, taking away my fucking powers, that's your limit."

"My limit," Jensen says, voice low, eyes fierce, "is losing you."

Jared looks away; he can't fucking deal with this. He pushes his chair back and gets up, makes to leave. These arguments are familiar and his frustration with them nigh on obsolete.

Jensen grabs his arm. "Don't give me that, I saved your life!"

"You destroyed it!" Jared shouts.

The hurt in Jensen's eyes hurts him, too, and for a moment Jared is overcome by the sincere desire to undo the past year. He wants this without bitterness, and with the ache in his heart that he usually tries to avoid.

"Jay—"

"Don't you fucking call me that."

"Make me."

"Fuck you," Jared snaps, tugging at his arm, but it only brings Jensen closer to him.

Jensen lays a hand on Jared's cheek and Jared hates himself for not moving away, for wanting more, but if he is honest with himself, aren't they both expecting it? They are both the victims of habit and nostalgia, and before Jared can be reminded further of the past, he distracts himself with the present and kisses Jensen. It is a preemptive strike. It is cutting to the chase. It is what he has starved for all these months, and these visits are too few and far between to comfort him.

This isn't the first time they've done this. As Jared suspected, they are unable to rise above their bond, unable to escape their hold on each other. Years of friendship could not be displaced by irrevocable hurt, and so the two have learned to coexist in a tangled compromise in which neither of them live up to their _nom de guerre_. Lightning is striking the same place again and again, and this phoenix can no longer burn.

Jared doesn't know how they got to the bedroom amid the kissing and the groping and the shedding of clothes. He will only remember the secondhand taste of whiskey and the desire to wrap himself around Jensen completely, impatient to lose himself. They leave a trail of shirts and gloves and coats from the kitchen to the bedroom, and then he is pushing Jensen down on the bed and crashing upon him like a wave. He follows the familiar junctures of Jensen's body. There are burn scars on him, clusters of discolored skin that hold their stories, and Jared traces them with his tongue, teeth, and fingers. On Jensen's upper arm, a sparring accident. His leg, the time Jensen tried to stop him from facing Nightfang alone. The side of his neck, that time Jensen fucked him raw and deep and Jared couldn't stop the fires rising when he came.

"Jay—" Jensen breathes.

"Shhh," Jared murmurs against the curve of his hip.

So they don't say anything for the next hour, because what is there left to say? They reacquaint themselves with each other's bodies, with the taste and shape of them. Jensen moans and Jared digs his fingers into his hips. What is there left to say that hasn't been said before?

+

Jensen breaks the silence afterward by saying, "I'm not sorry."

Jared tries to keep his expression neutral. "What?"

"I'm not sorry. If I could go back, I would still do the same thing."

"What if you couldn't fly?" Jared snaps. "What if you woke up one day and you couldn't fly and it was all because of me?"

"All because of—" Jensen rolls his eyes. "Fuck you. You selfish child."

"Oh, _I'm_ the selfish one."

"I would rather have you alive and hating me," Jensen says, very calmly, "than dead with Nightfang."

Jared opens his mouth to reply, and to his surprise, what comes out is, "I don't hate you."

Jensen raises his eyebrow, but Jared doesn't explain. Jensen gets out of bed and starts collecting his clothes.

Jared burrows deeper into the blankets. He once considered the hypothetical world where he has moved on from this mess, where Jensen is no longer in his life and Jared is an upstanding member of society, doing something productive and predictable. In this scenario, more than the idea of his powers gone, it was absence of Jensen that jarred. Jared once considered the alternate universe where it was Jensen who planned to sacrifice himself to destroy the enemy, and what would Jared have done then? In the end, it all led to the same place anyway. A world without Jensen is an alien and alienating concept, and Jared discontinued that line of thinking immediately. There is enough for him to mull over without adding on hypothetical hypocrisy. Understanding where Jensen is coming from is one thing, but forgiveness is another thing entirely.

"I mean it," Jensen says from Jared's bedroom doorway. He is all dressed, mask in hand. "Come back. Batman didn't have any superpowers and he kicked a ton of ass. You can fight. You're strong, man. You're smart."

Jared says, "I'm not Batman."

Jensen rolls his eyes, and turns to leave.

Jared says, "Wait," and Jensen pauses mid-step.

He can't make his throat work for some reason.

Jensen levitates a few feet off the ground and floats to Jared, who cannot tear his eyes away, whose heart is pounding. He hovers over Jared's bed like some demonic Peter Pan, and Jared makes the "come here" motion with his hand. When Jensen is close enough to touch, Jared reaches for his face and gently pulls him closer, then kisses him, brief and soft.

"I don't hate you," Jared says hoarsely, and looks into Jensen's eyes. "But I can't... You took everything from me."

Jared doesn't know how long he sits there in after Jensen leaves. He is aware of every passing second, yet retains none of them. He won't be able to sleep tonight. He never can when Jensen stops in. Every time Jared closes his eyes, he sees the New York skyline and a boy's grinning face lit up by firelight from Jared's own hands.

This too is familiar, and this too shall pass.

The next time cannot get here fast enough.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] How To Disappear Completely](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174301) by [froggyfun365](https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggyfun365/pseuds/froggyfun365)




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